SHRM reports that 64% of workers feel uncomfortable returning to the office after working remotely, even once vaccine roll-outs for COVID begin. While employees continue to work from home, it’s important to take steps to keep them engaged. Learn how you can increase remote employee engagement and measure engagement to see if it has improved.
Send a Care Package
One way to keep remote employees interested and engaged is to send everyone a care package. Forbes recommends sending a thoughtful package either monthly or quarterly as a way to show your employees that you’re thinking of them and invested in their happiness. Care packages can vary from inexpensive food gifts, such as coffee or tea samplers, to swag with your company logo. You can also choose lavish gifts depending on how many employees you have and your budget. Ensure that each employee gets the same care package and that they’re all slated to arrive at the same time so that no employee feels left out.
Get Social to Boost Remote Employee Engagement
When employees work fully from home, they miss out on the social bonding that comes from working in an office and making small talk. While you can’t fully replicate the water cooler talk, you can set up alternative ways to encourage your remote employees to bond. Encourage your employees to get social by setting up a social Slack channel where they can discuss current events, their favorite sitcom, or share photos of their pets. If the channel is feeling a little slow, get the conversation going with daily or weekly icebreakers. If your employees prefer a face-to-face social hour, host virtual happy hour or lunch breaks over Zoom to encourage conversation.
Set up Breaks
Remote burnout is a real risk for your team. The isolation of working from home, combined with the lack of work-life balance, creates a perfect storm for burnout. Check-in with each of your team members during one-on-one meetings and ask about their well-being and workload. Make adjustments to their workload as needed to prevent burnout. Encourage employees to take regular breaks throughout their workday and to sign off in the evening. Model this behavior yourself as a good example.
Recognize Your Employees to Increase Engagement
Workplace recognition is an excellent way to boost employee morale and improve employee engagement. For praise to be effective, be sure that it is genuine and given immediately when the task is completed. Bamboo HR recommends recognizing aspects beyond work to increase further engagement, such as employees’ work anniversary dates and birthdays. Recognizing employees is a thoughtful move that shows that you care about them as a whole person.
Improve Your Leadership Skills
A Gallup poll found that 70% of employees report their engagement directly reflects their manager’s leadership. If you’re trying to improve your remote employee’s engagement, work on improving your leadership skills. Brush up on your skills as a manager, specifically when managing remote workers. Learn your management style and determine if your specific management style is the best fit for your team and situation.
Understand Your Team
To understand what motivates each of your team members, you need to fully comprehend their personality and work style. Have each team member take our quick assessment and then read their PIC report. The PIC report gives you insights into their individual performance style, interpersonal style, and challenges. You’ll understand how your team members work best and what challenges they face in the workplace. Then, analyze your entire team as a unit. With our Team Room function, available on our web or mobile app, you can see how everyone on your team is distributed on a graph. Discover the strengths and biases that your team faces, and learn how to overcome challenges when managing your team. Gain valuable insights into each member’s strengths so that you can assign tasks based upon individual strengths.
Measure Remote Employee Engagement
How do you know if the measures you’ve taken to increase remote employee engagement are working? Utilize surveys before, during, and after the measures to gauge employee engagement. Quick surveys from companies like SurveyMonkey or Pulse are a simple way to ask your employees how engaged they’re feeling with their work.
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